Weather band radios enable a user to tune into National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) weather radio (NWR) communications. In the United States, regions have one or more weather radio stations that provide continuous radio broadcasting of weather conditions. This can be especially useful in case of weather-related or other emergency scenarios.
The weather broadcasting occurs in a relatively narrow bandwidth of the radio frequency (RF) spectrum. Specifically, a total of 175 kilohertz (kHz) bandwidth is available at between 160.4 Megahertz (MHz)-160.55 MHz, allowing a minimal 25 kHz for each channel. This narrowband operation can complicate radio design. In contrast, frequency modulation (FM) radio allows for much wider bandwidth for each channel, allowing much greater headroom for design of an FM receiver.
Currently available weather radios have been developed using analog radio technology which, although technically feasible, can be expensive to build, is not readily miniaturized to a small form factor, and has relatively minimal programmable capabilities.